Archive for October, 2010

Here’s a daytime look at the Santa Cruz beach and that old concrete ship. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of . . . umm . . . none of my famous series.

No post yet again yesterday. I was working on the iPhone app. But this time it was the church iPhone app. Got a fix done! You can now delete a photo. It’s all making sense to me now.

We got a letter from LRN1 today! Apparently, he bought a nice new planner with his birthday loot (along with a bit of a stash of candy) and it comes with a free brass nameplate. But it has to be ordered from and sent to an address in the good old USA. So he asked us to take care of that for him. Not much of a letter, I admit, but it was still nice to hear from him.

Not much else new. It’s gotten quite a bit cooler around Lardville. It was even cooler in Sunnyvale this morning, though. I heard there was a bit of frost on the pumpkin out there, although my car was only covered with dew – no ice yet. Still, it was very chilly.

On the other hand, it was sunny and pleasant most of the day. Can’t complain.

LRN12 is here for the week, as previously reported. She has spent the evening (and apparently much of the day) deeply engrossed in several episodes of Wonderpets. I’d say that show is a bit . . . predictable. That seems to be LRN4’s least favorite show, unfortunately. It appears to be pretty much all LRN12 wants to see these days. Just a little bit of friction around here today. But they’re having a great time. They went to the park today, which has to be LRN12’s favorite place, possibly even including the Costco hotdog stand. Also the Costco free sample carts.

And I want to get back to programming. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this combination toilet news and exciting Morrowlife employment opportunity: porta-potty football player!

Here’s the result of last Thursday’s launch. Looks pretty good, no? That thing worked exactly as designed – a testament to visionary engineering, good solid construction, and rigorous testing. Plus a pinch of luck.

Greetings from the train! It was a beautiful day today, after a rainy, cool weekend. The neighborhood barbecue was nice and relatively well attended, but it was held in our garage. It rained, as expected. Still, we got to know a few people and had a nice time.

No post last Friday. Got busy with the app. As usual. And then I spent most of the rest of the weekend goofing around. Oh, well. I’m doing this for fun, you know.

Anyway. Got released from my calling on Saturday evening. It was announced on Sunday. I can’t say I’m disappointed, but there are regrets. Always are.

Heard from LRN1 on Saturday, as usual. He sounds good and is working hard and enjoying himself. He was supposed to have a baptism of a long-time investigator on Sunday. I’ll be interested to heard how that turned out.

Not much else going on. Work continues to be quite busy and enjoyable. Home is uneventful and peaceful. Check that, I just remembered that LRN12 will be here for the week. I’m delighted to have her come stay with us for a while, but I think the “uneventful and peaceful” comment will have to be withdrawn. It’ll be good fun, if maybe a little less sleep than usual.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: sandwich assault!

Here’s LRN2 with his very-shaky-looking-but-prize-winning-anyway water rocket, just before he launched it into fame at this year’s Science Olympiad. In our extensive pre-contest testing, we determined that fins were unimportant, fancy looks were unimportant, and even a particularly straight nosecone was unimportant. So we didn’t have any of those. What was important was a reliable nosecone separation system and a working parachute deployment system. And we had those in spades, since that’s where we spent our development time. He was barely beaten by a team from a big high school, but his rocket worked great and was quite impressive in action. Love those goggles, LRN2. Part of my famous Machinery series. And yes, I think a water rocket is definitely a machine.

Quick post tonight – I want to get back to work on the app. No post yesterday. Also very little app work. I took the late train to work and consequently took the late train home. Just ran out of time to do much of anything.

Anyway. Happy Birthday to my mother! I tried calling her this afternoon, but missed her. Probably out partying. Fortunately, LRN4 was able to talk with her and I hope to catch up with her on the weekend. Many happy returns of the day anyway, Mom!

Not much else of consequence to tell. We’re getting ready for the neighborhood barbecue on Saturday. It’s supposed to be rainy and cool, but we can hope the rain holds off until after the burgers and steaks have been consumed. If not, we’ll be moving into our garage, presumably. Wish us fun, Loyal Readers!

Here’s LRN4 standing beside a very cleverly hidden geocache on our last camping trip. She was the one who found it, so she gets the credit. Part of my famous Camping and Vacation series.

No post yesterday. I was busy working on my app.

Which still isn’t done. Every time I fix one thing, another needs fixing. I can’t seem to get the timing right, so I had to do a pretty basic redesign of the main part of the first half of the app. That’s working now, and the timing still isn’t quite right. So I’ve started working on a calibration function to get the timing figured out on the fly. That ought to take care of it.

Otherwise, had a nice weekend. LRN5 and LRN12 were here again, as mentioned on Friday, which was nice. LRN5 needed to study, so we entertained LRN12 and had a good time. I got some good programming done too. And not much else. It rained, so outside activities/chores were limited.

But the app is coming along nicely. I didn’t get much work done on it today. Spent too much time frittering. But it was for a reason – I’m not quite sure how to move forward on the last major part of the app. But I plan to get it done this weekend. Really. By Sunday night, the app will be fully functional. I hereby commit.

Anyway. I did get a few things done on the app today, including stomping out a major bug and starting to pretty up the “About” screen. So there’s that.

LRN2 is out at a scout overnighter. He was asked to help, so he agreed to go. LRN4 and I were planning on being home alone tonight and most of tomorrow, but LRN5 and LRN12 are on their way over for the weekend. I’m looking forward to having them here. LRN5 needs to get some studying done.

The big news of the week – yesterday was LRN1’s twentieth birthday! Happy birthday, LRN1! Of course, he won’t be reading this post for another 16 months. If ever. But it’s the thought that counts.

Hit golf balls at the driving range again this morning. Out of about 110 balls, I think I hit about 30 of them well. Which is a huge improvement, sadly enough. I’m almost ready to hit the links again. Might ask my friend Doug to invite me sometime when he needs a partner.

Time for other things. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife employment opportunity: professional sleeper!